State of undeveloped building sites (2)

The Sliema Residents Association fully empathises with Ms Camilleri's concerns regarding Tigné's concrete jungle and would like to inform her and all Sliema residents that the association shares similar concerns for all of Sliema.

Furthermore, the association is not stopping at voicing such concerns publicly in the media, but is actively interacting with the relevant authorities. It has also submitted a significant number of objections to Mepa against various 'development' applications where the application indicates further crowding. These formal objections indicate breaches in Mepa's own Northern Harbours Local Plan of 2006, the text of which makes very pertinent references to Sliema as an over-developed location.

The plan states in no uncertain terms that Sliema is suffering from a limited recreational space, infiltration of traffic, noise and other effects resulting from tourism development, commercial intensification and high housing densities' (234 dwellings per hectare) and is considered as "an area which cannot comfortably accommodate further development".

Regrettably, Mepa's continued approval of more projects is undermining its own plan which states that, in the congested areas of Sliema, the emphasis will be on new housing through rehabilitation and selective redevelopment rather than through extensive building, height relaxation or redesignation of open space. It further advises that in localities such as Sliema, more development would further increase noise, traffic, overshadowing, and sense of enclosure and degradation of the public realm.

With 25 per cent of Sliema's housing units vacant, residents are suffering from air pollution which has already surpassed the EU threshold for NO2 and benzene on several occasions. The association is also concerned about expected higher pollution levels, once these vacant premises are occupied and the approved development projects are occupied and functioning.

More buildings in Sliema will exacerbate matters due to an inadequate road infrastructure, water, electricity supply and drainage infrastructures, which are already overloaded.

The plan has also drawn the attention of the Prime Minister to these matters through Mario de Marco, Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism Culture and the Environment, and Mepa chairman Austin Walker, during a recent meeting at the Auberge d'Italie. The association presented a well researched and considered proposal to safeguard and rehabilitate Villa Bonici and its gardens as an open public garden and to rehabilitate a building in the same area as the long promised and much needed old people's home for aging Sliema residents.

Once the grounds of Villa Bonici and the area around it are built over, as proposed by some current development applications under consideration at Mepa, the number of housing units in Sliema will increase significantly, causing further strain on the infrastructure and robbing Sliema of the last of its grand gardens and green spaces.

The association's committee, with the help of some volunteers, is doing its utmost with its limited resources to safeguard Sliema against overdevelopment in the interest of residents' health and quality of life.

Sliema residents are invited to join and support the association in its mission. Visit www.sra.org.mt and contact the association at info@sra.org.mt or SRA, PO Box 66, Sliema.